Yeah I know. Lightning does a really nice amount. I have 6%+ from bolt mastery, thought it would reduce MP.
Thing is rarely use Icebolt now, is damage decent with it at a high rank mastery?
I have 10% staff, with 15% icebolt of course, and 6% from bolt mastery.
I rarely use icebolt as well. I do like 110s-140s with it without crits
Well i have rank 3 hailstorm and rank 4 ice mastery, and I loves it. Hailstorm is not meant for aoeing as said earlier and more of a mage's boss killer skill, because it has a much better dps and does more damage to single targets than any other spell. I admit ranking this skill is not a must, but using this skill will make you much more efficient in hard and elite missions where TH, IS, and FBL will not kill the monsters and make them charge at you. Hailstorm allows you to focus high damage on one monster.
Some cons of the skill is that if you plan on making good use of it, rank 5+ is a must. I absolutely fell in love with the skill at rank 5. The faster crystal loading and increased range was helpful, but the greatest thing in you finally get the ability to charge 5 crystals. The 5 charge crystals do much more damage then there 1-4 charge counterparts, and I must do some research to see if 5 charges give it a 6.5x damage multiplier like with IS and firebolt. Another con is that it doesn't ignore protection, but even without critting it still does massive damage. Having a high crit will just make you a better hailstorm user. Another bad thing is the mana cost, but it is only 10 more mp then a human fully charging IS. Also while IS gives you that 1 high damage hit to x amount of monsters, Hailstorm allows you to do the damage of 5 ISs to one or multiple monsters for only 10 mp more.
While discussing the MP cost, it is being questioned if hailstorm uses less mp with more int like I posted in other post due to reading it on the jp wiki. I have just tested it myself. Without trans I had 565 int when i tested this. I went from 515mp to 395mp in a full hailstorm usage. That is 120 mp used. Then i transed and tested it again. I had 895 int in trans. The mp usage with trans went from 791 to 671. Still 120 mp....So it seemed that hailstorm isnt affected by int. And The thing on the jp wiki is wrong, but if int doesnt affect it I'm wondering why I'm using less mana than I should be. With my mana reduction set and my rank 4 ice mastery. It should be 170x.9x.85 because its .9 from mana reduction set and .85 from ice mastery. With that info I should be using 130mp. Hmm...Let me test is with my base intelligence. I have 494 base, and since according to the jp wiki its -2% per 100 int. I'll use .92 which gives me the equation 170x.9x.85x.92 and then I get 119.6 which rounds to 120... This brings me to the conclusion that hailstorm is reduced by 2% with int, but it is only your base int and that would explain why the bonus int from my enchants and trans didnt affect it. Oh look i may have found something interesting. If there are any other mages who would like to tes it be my guess, but so far i'm sticking with my conclusion that hailstorm is reduced by int but only by base int.
Those are the only cons that I see, but even with them I still think hailstorm is a wonderful addition to a mage's arsenal. For example, in Golden Apple HM I usually use fireball then play dead. Fireball takes 1/5-1/4 of their hp unless it crits and takes a little bit more. Then I have to play dead because after the fireball they will all rush at me and if I get up after playing dead they still rush at me. I ran golden apple HM today and felt much more helpful because I was using hailstorm and was hitting 1.5k with 5 charges like 5 times giving me a total of around 7.5k total damage done on it allowing me to effectively kill my own monsters and keep me from being mobbed. Also this was without crit because my crit rate epic fails....
Well thats just my thoughts..heres some pics I just took. O ya, I transed for the last 1 because I was trying to crit on that bear....but my 30% crit just wasnt cutting it...gotta make a crit set...
Is ~150 mana really that bad?
Is ~150 mana really that bad?
Yep what Cryo said. We don't wanna waste all our mana on one spell, or at least half of our mana on one spell xD
A decent mage will of course conserve his or her mana as well as possible, and seek out ways to reduce the cost of spells irregardless. Assuming that all has been done though, at some point you will typically run out of mana, and have to use mp potions to be able to cast stuff.
Before g13 maintenance, mp100's were selling readily at 20-30k/stack. 1.5 mp potions is 3-4.5k gold.
so a 150mp hailstorm can be thought to cost you 3-4.5k gold to cast. by comparison, a stack of sp30's costs 1,400 gold and gives you 300 stamina for your melee/range/alchemy needs. Imagine if hailstorm cost you 600-900 stamina per cast, and that'd be pretty similar.
The only thing going for this skill is the fact that it does not consume staff durability.
Or if it does, very little.
Lost 1 dura going from f~1
Its kinda like they fused Ice bolt and Ice Spear together. Its pretty sweet, but I'm wondering if they plan on adding new fire and thunder skills.
btw does Hailstorm count as adv magic or not?
So now, Fireball thunder and IS aren't adv magic?
waaat?